Steve Masson

Is inhibition involved in overcoming a common physics misconception in mechanics

Abstract Science education is often challenged by students׳ misconceptions about various phenomena. Recent studies show that these misconceptions coexist with scientific conceptions, even after a conceptual change occurs. However, the mechanisms involve in overcoming the interference caused by this coexistence remain poorly understood. A possible explanation is that inhibition could play a role in learning science. An fMRI protocol was used to obtain functional brain images of novices and experts while performing a cognitive task in mechanics, a scientific discipline for which misconceptions are known to be frequent and persistent. The results show that experts, significantly more than novices, activate brain areas associated with inhibition: the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. This suggests that the experts׳ misconceptions in mechanics have not been eradicated or transformed during learning; they would rather have remained encoded in their brain and were then inhibited to provide a correct answer.

Linking neuroscientific research on decision making to the educational context of novice students assigned to a multiple-choice scientific task involving common misconceptions about electrical circuits.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to identify the brain-based mechanisms of uncertainty and certainty associated with answers to multiple-choice questions involving common misconceptions about electric circuits. Twenty-two scientifically novice participants (humanities and arts college students) were asked, in an fMRI study, whether or not they thought the light bulbs in images presenting electric circuits were lighted up correctly, and if they were certain or uncertain of their answers. When participants reported that they were unsure of their responses, analyses revealed significant activations in brain areas typically involved in uncertainty (anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula cortex, and superior/dorsomedial frontal cortex) and in the left middle/superior temporal lobe. Certainty was associated with large bilateral activations in the occipital and parietal regions usually involved in visuospatial processing. Correct-and-certain answers were associated with activations that suggest a stronger mobilization of visual attention resources when compared to incorrect-and-certain answers. These findings provide insights into brain-based mechanisms of uncertainty that are activated when common misconceptions, identified as such by science education research literature, interfere in decision making in a school-like task. We also discuss the implications of these results from an educational perspective.

Is inhibitory control involved in discriminating pseudowords that contain the reversible letters b and d

Children tend to confuse reversible letters such as b and d when they start learning to read. According to some authors, mirror errors are a consequence of the mirror generalization (MG) process that allows one to recognize objects independently of their left-right orientation. Although MG is advantageous for the visual recognition of objects, it is detrimental for the visual recognition of reversible letters. Previous studies comparing novice and expert readers demonstrated that MG must be inhibited to discriminate reversible single letters. In this study, we investigated whether MG must also be inhibited by novice readers to discriminate between two pseudowords containing reversible letters. Readable pseudowords, rather than words, were used to mimic early non-automatic stages of reading when reading is achieved by decoding words through grapheme-phoneme pairing and combination. We designed a negative priming paradigm in which school-aged children (10-year-olds) were asked to judge whether two pseudowords were identical on the prime and whether two animals were identical on the probe. Children required more time to determine that two animals were mirror images of each other when preceded by pseudowords containing the reversible letter b or d than when preceded by different pseudowords containing the control letter f or t (Experiment 1) or by different pseudowords that differed only by the target letter f or k (Experiment 2). These results suggest that MG must be inhibited to discriminate between pseudowords containing reversible letters, generalizing the findings regarding single letters to a context more representative of the early stages of reading.

Effects of teaching the concept of neuroplasticity to induce a growth mindset on motivation, achievement, and brain activity: A meta-analysis

Abstract Context Inducing a growth mindset in students has been shown to impact positively on motivation, academic achievement, and brain activity. However, some studies have yielded different results and authors rarely provide reasons to explain this inconsistency. Purpose The primary objective of this article was to better understand the conflicting evidence by synthesizing the studies on the subject. Methods We conducted a meta-analysis of 10 peer-reviewed studies teaching neuroplasticity to induce a growth mindset in participants from age 7 to adulthood. Results Results show that inducing a growth mindset by teaching neuroplasticity has an overall positive effect on motivation, achievement, and brain activity. The results also reveal that this intervention seems more beneficial for at-risk students, especially regarding mathematics achievement (g = 0.78). Conclusion These findings thus suggest that inconsistent evidence across empirical studies could be explained by students’ characteristics and subject area.

Vibronic structure in the luminescence spectra of tetragonal d2 and d8 complexes analyzed by wavepacket dynamics on two-dimensional potential surfaces

The luminescence spectra of the tetragonal trans-ReO2(vinylimidazole)4+ complex and the square planar Pd(SCN)42? and Pt(SCN)42? complexes all show vibronic progressions in two predominant vibrational modes. In the first complex, the vibronic progressions involve high-frequency and low-frequency metal?ligand modes. In the square planar complexes, the two vibrational modes have similar frequencies. At the intermediate resolution, often observed experimentally, these compounds provide an example of the missing mode (or MIME) effect. Wavepacket dynamics on two-dimensional surfaces explain in a visual and intuitively appealing way the spectroscopic features. The distinct effects are caused by the different frequency ratios between the two modes of the two-dimensional models describing each complex. The emitting state structure determined from the spectra reveals similar changes along a bending normal coordinate for Pd(SCN)42? and Pt(SCN)42?